


Wanting to Happen

by Liu



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Fix-It, Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, In a way, Leonard Snart Lives, M/M, Not necessarily though, Speeedforce and Time are having a chat, kinda coldflash, post Flash 3x22
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-17
Updated: 2017-05-17
Packaged: 2018-11-01 19:26:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 735
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10928442
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Liu/pseuds/Liu
Summary: Barry put Leonard Snart back in 1892. At least, that's what Barry thinks he did... and 'Len' is not going to try to convince him otherwise.





	Wanting to Happen

**Author's Note:**

> Just a really convoluted metaphysical fix-it because Len lives.  
> In a way.

He watches the speedster disappear in a flash of lightning, back to 2017 to try and save the woman he loves. It’s futile, but what little is left of Leonard Snart’s heart cannot bring himself to spoil the young man’s hopes.

That’s not how time works, and Len is long past raging against the flow of the inevitable. The lightning sparks flicker out, and Len pulls the parka closer over his body, a gesture of habit rather than an attempt to ward off the cold. He’s past that, mostly, but he relishes those small things that keep him remembering who he used to be. _What_ he used to be. It’s a novelty feeling, to be feeling at all, and it’s inevitable, just as Barry’s relentless pursuit of heroism.

He feels a presence at his side, and turns to watch a slow smile turn up the corners of Barry Allen’s mouth. He looks a little older than the young man who just left 1892, but that’s maybe just because Len can sense the flow of time emanating from this other version of the boy.

“That was a good thing you said there,” Barry’s voice echoes softly through the clearing. Behind them, the Waverider roars to life, making conversation impossible for a while. Impossible in human voices, at least, and that seems what they are both opting for right now, out of some lingering nostalgia for the bits of humanity caught up in what they truly are.

Neither of them moves when the energy from the ship’s engines ruffles the grass and bends the branches of the trees around them. It winks out of 1892 in a matter of seconds, and leaves the two lone figures standing in the clearing, faces turned up towards the sky.

“You could’ve tried to help him,” Barry observes, and Len lets out a quiet chuckle. He knows that Barry is not talking about the ARGUS heist – that, Len admits, has been a concession to the small part of him that craves the thrill of the chase, of a job, of watching ambiguous morals battle with goodness in Barry Allen’s green eyes.

“Haven’t you heard?” Len smirks. “I want to happen.”

Barry gives him an amused look – he’s gotten better at getting the expression right, since he became used to taking this form. A concession to Len’s own, perhaps. They are well-matched like this, even if they are perpetually aware of the existence of the other, have been since the very beginning. Parts of them have become capable of feeling almost like humans, enjoying the moment like the ephemeral beings who truly live and die, and these forms seem to enhance that capability. Barry Allen, who had, and will, always feel a little too much, and Leonard Snart, who felt a lot more than he ever let on. Adversaries and allies, pushing each other forward like an invisible force… yes, they are good forms, for both of them.

“You could’ve helped him too,” Len adds, after a while. Barry shrugs; they are both aware that things happen the way they do, and they both see too far, know too much to change things that have always been set.

“Which one? They are both mine,” Barry sighs, and Len understands. Barry Allen, the hero of Central City, and Barry Allen the time remnant, the one who should never have been, the one who is trying to tear it all apart out of hurt. Len feels that ache acutely, and so does the one standing next to him.

Somewhere, in a different moment in Len, Barry Allen is clutching his fiancée’s body, his heart splitting apart. Right now, in Siberia, things go on living around them, passing from second to second, even as Len reaches over and twines his fingers with Barry’s gloved ones. It’s always an odd thrill, to feel them touch physically when they have always been intertwined, one never existing without the other. Each of them is a sum of changing parts, though, like Barry Allen, like Leonard Snart, and maybe it means that bit by bit, with every tiny sliver of a conscience left within them, they are changing, too.

Their physical forms start fading, and the consciousness of their forms slips a little, replaced by the consciousness of being inevitably connected. Leonard Snart turns to Barry Allen for one last smirk.

“See you around, Speedforce.”

“Until the next, Time.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> Come talk to me on [tumblr.](https://pheuthe.tumblr.com/)


End file.
